My mom brainwashed me to be confident. She told me over and over that I was great and destined for great things. And it worked. To this day, when I lose or make a mistake, I get mad, but I always wind up where my mother left me: “You’re great. All you need is more practice.” And it turns out, more often than not, that’s true. If you practice, you get better and achieve what you couldn’t, which…
One of the main reasons for the decline in goods and services in the United States, and to a lesser extent, the world, is the financialization of our economies by excessive money printing. Let's break that down into simpler language. The quality of the things and services you buy has gotten worse because the people making those things and doing those services are worse today, generally, than the…
When a seasoned founder sells their company, they are transformed from a highly productive member of society into a depressed money manager. Meanwhile, the goods and services of their former company are degraded by the loss of its most effective employee. The former founder is deterred from starting a new business by the seemingly high returns generated by their money, which will for years dwarf…
My company has sold $2.6 million on Faire over the past 4.5 years. As selling on Amazon has become tougher and tougher, we are thankful for the growing sales Faire has brought us. That said, it's a difficult, counterintuitive marketplace to operate on, and one that is getting, like Amazon, more difficult. What is Faire? It's a wholesale marketplace. They make it easy for brick-and-mortar stores to…
A famous newspaper asked me to write an opinion article. But every time I submitted a draft, they'd edit it, changing the message of the piece, even though the article was meant to be my opinion. Most people would have consented to the edits to have the honor of being in the newspaper. I decided not to be published and turned down the opportunity. Here's the last draft of the article: Chinese…
I thought I was good. Until I met Sol. Solomon Rosengarten is a lawyer from Brooklyn. He has an AOL email address. He is not great with the mute button on his phone. He sometimes comes across as incompetent. But, he is the best damned lawyer I have ever known. Sol is a killer. Sol is bulletproof. He is the angry grandpa I never had, the one who never wanted me as his grandchild. And nothing,…
On April 2nd, 2025, our president announced major new taxes on imports from foreign countries (“tariffs”), ranging from 10% to 49%. The stated goal is to bring manufacturing back to the United States and to “make America wealthy again”. These tariffs will not work. In fact, they may even do the opposite, fail to bring manufacturing back and make America poorer in the process. This article gives…
DECIDE D - Determine the Bottleneck E - Engage with the subject matter C - Clear distractions I - Implement mental models D - Decide how to proceed E - Execute next steps When you’re traveling or waiting for something to happen, instead of listening to a podcast or scrolling on your phone, you can use the DECIDE algorithm to convert that otherwise wasted time into a realization, a useful plan, or…
People who succeed via analysis of numbers and facts need to learn that understanding of people can make that analysis unnecessary and can even outperform it. Examples: 1. Amazon did not make money between its 1994 founding through 2002. There was no financial or business fundamentals analysis that could’ve led you to buying the stock, which would launch AWS and FBA in 2006. The only way you…
Brontosaurus skeleton at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (allegedly) Let’s pretend for a moment that brontosauruses are made up, despite them being accepted by the public and scientific community, having ample evidence for their existence, and appearing in museums all over the world. Let me show you how this could come to be: Smart, but young, naive, and generally conformist people…
This article will explain the following: 1. What is a Fiacracy 2. How do Fiacracies NOT work 3. How Fiacracies work 4. Are Fiacracies sustainable 5. Why Fiacracies matter 1. What is a fiacracy? It’s government by fiat (money). The driving mechanism by which it works is not voting (democracy), a royal family (monarchy), or even a stable ruling elite (aristocracy, oligarchy). It’s a government…
1. Empathy 2. Dexterity 3. Persuasion 4. Musicality 5. Confidence 6. Ambition 7. Grit 8. Creativity 9. Flexibility 10. Energy 11. Individualism 12. Willpower 13. Stoicisim 14. Objectivity 15. Allure
There is investment advice in the book of Jewish religious law (the Talmud). It advises that you keep 1/3rd of your wealth in business, 1/3rd in land, and 1/3rd in gold. It's genius. Why? First, it's simple. Second, business, and, to a lesser extent, land, (but not gold, usually) can make you wealthy. But the real genius is its protection against RISK. Think about the bad luck that can happen to…
Midland, Texas. More oil gets drilled here than anywhere else in the USA. And it’s lucrative. There’s a lot of money to be made. We’re talking about $100,000+ for risky jobs that don’t require a college degree. Okay, but what happens if you have a non-oil business when oil gets discovered in Midland? Suppose you have a warehouse that ships out packages. You will never again be able to get labor.…
A reserve currency is the currency that people all over the world prefer to store their savings in. Today that currency is the US dollar. From the Middle East, to Asia, to South America — Whether it's a family that needs to keep some money around just in case or a country, most prefer to keep their savings in dollars. But what would happen to America if that changed? For one, we wouldn't be able…
Austin is a more pleasant place to live than Dallas because people are smarter on average. This does not mean there are not smart people in Dallas. There are. What it does mean is the typical Austinite is just a little sharper. This makes for more pleasant conversations. It’s easier to get complicated things done. And despite its lower population it more easily sustains intellectual activities…
“Buying the dip” is buy stocks whenever there is a short-term decline in stock prices, under the assumption that asset prices will quickly revert, enabling you to make money. This article explains why a government-driven culture of “buying the dip” can be damaging to you and society at large. Markets work best when people use fundamental analysis rather than prices or what they think is a…
The state of California has sued Amazon in what may be the biggest antitrust case for 25 years, when 20 states joined the US Department of Justice to sue Microsoft. These cases revolve around whether consumers are harmed by the company’s actions. The case against Amazon focuses on their pricing policies. Here’s how they work and why they allegedly cause consumer harm. Amazon prohibits sellers from…
I’m the founder and CEO of Viahart (est. 2010), an e-commerce focused educational toy company. We did $8.8 million in sales in 2021. This article is going to tell you what it was like to run this business in 2021 vs. 2020, amidst threats like the Amazon aggregators, supply chain difficulties, inflation, and even getting “dragged” on social media. You may want to read last year’s version of this…
Yes. Let me explain. Amazon made it easy for Chinese companies to sell their products directly to American consumers. In response, the Chinese, after having hollowed out American manufacturing, have moved up the value chain to do the same thing to American wholesale and retail. We are transitioning from a world where everything is made in China, to one where everything is designed and sold by…